This invention relates to allyl isothiocyanate sprays.
Allyl isothiocyanate is also referred to as allyl mustard oil and generally obtained by extraction from a raw material such as mustard and Japanese horseradish (Wasabia japonica Matusum) by steam distillation or by subjecting sodium thiocyanate and allyl chloride to distillation.
The thus obtained allyl mustard oil is primarily utilized as a flavoring agent for foods or as a raw material of pharmaceutical preparations.
The present inventors, having noted the properties of allyl mustard oil and use thereof for bacteriostatic or germicidal treatment or quality preservation, made extensive studies.
They found that satisfactory effect can be exhibited if allyl mustard oil is used even in a very small amount for the purpose of bacteriostatic or germicidal treatment, etc.
However, allyl mustard oil is an oily liquid which develops peculiar irritating odor and has a comparatively low flash point, so that it involves a number of problems so as to be utilized widely. For example, when allyl mustard oil is used for bacteriostatic or germicidal treatment, it must be vaporized, requiring a vaporizing apparatus for that purpose. Besides, the vaporizing apparatus must indispensably be equipped with a safety device since a low-flash point oil is vaporized, so that the vaporizing apparatus will inevitably be enlarged and expensive. Accordingly, the vaporizing apparatus cannot conveniently be utilized for other purposes than treating a great amount of materials to be treated.
Spraying can be given as an expedient means of vaporizing allyl mustard oil. However, since ordinary spraying methods employ LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) or Freon gas as an atomizing medium, they involve problems in the properties of such gas and in safety. When allyl mustard oil is sprayed using such gaseous medium, the aerosol thus formed comes to have a comparatively great particle size as big as that of mist to stain clothes or fabrics and besides it cannot be sprayed uniformly over a wide area. Accordingly, LPG and Freon cannot be employed for spraying allyl mustard oil due to many inconveniences described above.
There is proposed another technique of spraying a solution of a principal spray agent dissolved in liquefied carbon dioxide gas. This technique can give a very fine aerosol, but solubility of allyl mustard oil in liquefied carbon dioxide gas is not known and further this method involves too many technical problems which must be solved, such as strong irritating odor, correlation between the gaseous composition and the practical bacteriostatic or germicidal effect of the aerosol, etc., to be proposed as a practical method.